How to Pan for Sapphires

Obtain your sapphire gravel. If you choose to go to a mine, they will offer some instructions on how to sort the stones and will grade them for you for free. It's still helpful to take your own tweezers and pie plate for sorting out the gems from the rocks. If you wish to order the gravel, you can find the sapphires on your own at home.

Set up your work station with your dirty gravel on one end, then your water,then a towel, then a light source. If you have a light table for sorting slides or photo negatives, that would be ideal, but any type of light will work.

Put a scoop of gravel in your sifter. Carefully dip the sifter into the water and shake it around until the gravel is cleaned of dirt. Tap the sifter on the towel to get most of the water out. Dump the gravel into the pie plate.

Hold the pie plate over the light and slowly sort through the stones. Sapphires will show the light through them, whereas rocks will not. Quartz is often found in the same gravel as sapphire, so it's important to know that quartz shows light through, but it's translucent, not transparent. Sapphires will look like bits of broken glass. Use the tweezers to pick out any gems and dump the rocks into a bucket.

Take the rocks you've sorted back to the mine or send them to the mine that sent you the gravel. They will sort and grade the stones, usually for free. They will also give you the chance to have your larger stones cut for you for a small fee.